Adapted from the bio in the Yoñlu's website which is adapted from an article in the March 2008 issue of Rolling Stone Brazil (você pode ler aqui a matéria em português da Rolling Stone):
16 year-old Vinícius Gageiro Marques lived in the Southwestern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. He was a bright inquisitive young man, a polyglot adolescent who spoke French (he lived with his family in Paris from 3 until 7 years old), and wrote and spoke English without ever taking classes (he learned by watching TV). He began reading Kafka at 12, and at 13 dedicated himself to recording daily life using a photo camera. Vinicius also had an impressive musical aptitude. He demonstrated a knowledge and a critical sense in his analysis of pop music, always written in English and available on various websites. And he recorded hundreds of songs, playing guitars, bass, drums and sound effects in one of the rooms in his house he transformed into a studio.
But his focus had a dark side. "He was serious, maybe too serious," remembers his mother Ana Maria. "Very early on, I understood that his sensitivity to the world was also his weakness."
16 year-old Vinícius Gageiro Marques lived in the Southwestern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. He was a bright inquisitive young man, a polyglot adolescent who spoke French (he lived with his family in Paris from 3 until 7 years old), and wrote and spoke English without ever taking classes (he learned by watching TV). He began reading Kafka at 12, and at 13 dedicated himself to recording daily life using a photo camera. Vinicius also had an impressive musical aptitude. He demonstrated a knowledge and a critical sense in his analysis of pop music, always written in English and available on various websites. And he recorded hundreds of songs, playing guitars, bass, drums and sound effects in one of the rooms in his house he transformed into a studio.
But his focus had a dark side. "He was serious, maybe too serious," remembers his mother Ana Maria. "Very early on, I understood that his sensitivity to the world was also his weakness."
On the afternoon of July 26th of 2006, 36 days before turning 17, Vinicius locked himself inside the bathroom of his apartment, and took his own life via carbon monoxide intoxication. An avid Internet user with the screen-name Yoñlu, Vinicius stayed on-line until the very last moments, and members of the suicide forum he frequented accompanied his every last step. Before locking himself in the bathroom, Vinicius wrote a letter freeing his family members from any guilt, explaining that his suicide could not have been stopped or imagined. He asked that his wishes be respected because his life was unbearable, he indicated the web address for his blog, thanked his parents for their support and recommended they listen to his music whenever they were sad, exactly as he would do. Even though he didn't suggest they listen to the music he composed, he left them a CD with some of his songs.
On Vinicius'computer (which was being searched by Police investigators), his father discovered some of the precious sounds he had stored away — the majority were his own songs. The music came with enthusiastic commentary made by Internet fans from around the world. Yoñlu, the Brazilian from Gay Harbour (that's how he would refer to Porto Alegre), almost without any real friends in real life, was a popular virtual artist with fans from England, Scotland, Belgium, Canada and North Africa.
His recordings revealed just a fraction of his potential, his talent for experimentalism, and a capacity to create delicate melancholy melodies, something between Badly Drawn Boy, Radiohead, Tortoise and Nick Drake.
Yonlu's sound was enriched by his passion for bossa nova, his attention to the ruptures in Tropicalia (he considered Gilberto Gil the genius of the movement) and the influences of gaucho artists such as Vitor Ramil, his favorite, whose song "Estrela" he covers here.
Between a poetic lyricism and general nonsense, the lyrics, written in English, help uncover who Viñicius really was. Topics like depression, inadequacy and suicide are scattered among the tracks selected for the disc. "Katie Don't Be Depressed," a musical pearl with steamy guitars and popular lyrics, is somber: "Katie don't get depressed/it's serious, I want to say, what the hell is that? / a thought across your mind/ and I see you twist and scream/ even though you have a hand to hold onto/ even though you were cast aside."
Yoñlu is a disc that should have been a post card, but transformed itself into a testament. It's the celebration of a life with the talent for a banquet that stopped at the appetizer. It's a showcase of sound and poetry of the kisses that Vinicius never gave, the dreams he never realized, the anguishes he couldn't get over, his passion for art and especially for music, like he expressed in the letter he wrote to his parents: "I believe that the right cadence and harmony at the right moments can awaken any sentiment, including happiness in the most somber moments."
StrangeGlue's review of the posthumous album from 2009 "A Society in Which No Tear Is Shed Is Inconceivably Mediocre" gives us a complete idea of the song of today:
On Boy And The Tiger, you witness the frantic thought-patterns and decisions that he seems intent to convey and its genuinely one of the most convoluted pieces of music we've ever heard. It starts heavily grounded within folk territory with Vinícius's melancholic vocals and the occasional elephant noise. Within just a minute, the song fizzles out into a warped, eery 'Silent Night' jingle but before eyebrows can even be raised, Vinícius starts up again, this time in an absolutely insane vocal style over a fuzzier folk rhythm. It begins to speed up, quicker and quicker before sounding like a fairground ride and then, once again, the entire song shifts into a simple, almost a cappella hip-hop rhythm. It's comical and you're meant to laugh for a moment but our time here is only brief. Mumbles send shivers down the spine as once again, a new rhythm pushes it's way to the front. A gentle, fragile acoustic guitar is quickly smothered with an abrasive one note electric chord and deep vocals are juxtaposed against a falsetto tone. Soon enough, percussion's are introduced, creating just one more altered rhythm in a piece of art that defies everything music is.
Época Magazine, an important media in the country, stated in an article about Vinícius the history of the whistling in the song The Boy and the Tiger:
"São mais de 60 músicas. Vinícius aprendeu a tocar bateria aos 4 anos, depois piano e violão. Na porta do quarto grudava um cartaz: 'Gravando'. Uma vez chamou a mãe para ajudar na canção 'Tiger', faixa 14 do CD: o aparelho nos dentes não permitia que ele gravasse o assobio."
It was Youñlu's mother who whistled because his dental braces prevented him from whistling.
On Vinicius'computer (which was being searched by Police investigators), his father discovered some of the precious sounds he had stored away — the majority were his own songs. The music came with enthusiastic commentary made by Internet fans from around the world. Yoñlu, the Brazilian from Gay Harbour (that's how he would refer to Porto Alegre), almost without any real friends in real life, was a popular virtual artist with fans from England, Scotland, Belgium, Canada and North Africa.
His recordings revealed just a fraction of his potential, his talent for experimentalism, and a capacity to create delicate melancholy melodies, something between Badly Drawn Boy, Radiohead, Tortoise and Nick Drake.
Yonlu's sound was enriched by his passion for bossa nova, his attention to the ruptures in Tropicalia (he considered Gilberto Gil the genius of the movement) and the influences of gaucho artists such as Vitor Ramil, his favorite, whose song "Estrela" he covers here.
Between a poetic lyricism and general nonsense, the lyrics, written in English, help uncover who Viñicius really was. Topics like depression, inadequacy and suicide are scattered among the tracks selected for the disc. "Katie Don't Be Depressed," a musical pearl with steamy guitars and popular lyrics, is somber: "Katie don't get depressed/it's serious, I want to say, what the hell is that? / a thought across your mind/ and I see you twist and scream/ even though you have a hand to hold onto/ even though you were cast aside."
Yoñlu is a disc that should have been a post card, but transformed itself into a testament. It's the celebration of a life with the talent for a banquet that stopped at the appetizer. It's a showcase of sound and poetry of the kisses that Vinicius never gave, the dreams he never realized, the anguishes he couldn't get over, his passion for art and especially for music, like he expressed in the letter he wrote to his parents: "I believe that the right cadence and harmony at the right moments can awaken any sentiment, including happiness in the most somber moments."
StrangeGlue's review of the posthumous album from 2009 "A Society in Which No Tear Is Shed Is Inconceivably Mediocre" gives us a complete idea of the song of today:
On Boy And The Tiger, you witness the frantic thought-patterns and decisions that he seems intent to convey and its genuinely one of the most convoluted pieces of music we've ever heard. It starts heavily grounded within folk territory with Vinícius's melancholic vocals and the occasional elephant noise. Within just a minute, the song fizzles out into a warped, eery 'Silent Night' jingle but before eyebrows can even be raised, Vinícius starts up again, this time in an absolutely insane vocal style over a fuzzier folk rhythm. It begins to speed up, quicker and quicker before sounding like a fairground ride and then, once again, the entire song shifts into a simple, almost a cappella hip-hop rhythm. It's comical and you're meant to laugh for a moment but our time here is only brief. Mumbles send shivers down the spine as once again, a new rhythm pushes it's way to the front. A gentle, fragile acoustic guitar is quickly smothered with an abrasive one note electric chord and deep vocals are juxtaposed against a falsetto tone. Soon enough, percussion's are introduced, creating just one more altered rhythm in a piece of art that defies everything music is.
Época Magazine, an important media in the country, stated in an article about Vinícius the history of the whistling in the song The Boy and the Tiger:
"São mais de 60 músicas. Vinícius aprendeu a tocar bateria aos 4 anos, depois piano e violão. Na porta do quarto grudava um cartaz: 'Gravando'. Uma vez chamou a mãe para ajudar na canção 'Tiger', faixa 14 do CD: o aparelho nos dentes não permitia que ele gravasse o assobio."
It was Youñlu's mother who whistled because his dental braces prevented him from whistling.
The boy with a tiger
The boy with the girl
The boy with a tiger
The boy with the girl
The boy is gentle
In forest
The tiger was starving
And go to eat him
When he have an idea
To put the girl for the animal
The tiger was clever
And to raise she for
your his cage
she live in the cage
for ten years
and there the animal
don't let the girl leave
and there the animal
don't let the girl leave
and there the animal
don't let the girl leave
When the boy go to the cage
and take the girl
She cry and cry
with a dangerous to return
a life
With a strange people
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